The virtue of humility gets a lot of bad press. It is often seen as an invitation to be treated as a doormat or as a lack of self-esteem. Humility can also be used to oppress people by “keeping them in their place.”

Hell is never a nasty surprise waiting for a basically happy person. Hell can only be the full-flowering of a pride and selfishness that have, through a long time, twisted a heart so thoroughly that it considers happiness as unhappiness and has an arrogant disdain for happy people. If you are essentially warm of heart this side of eternity, you need not fear a nasty surprise awaits you on the other side because somewhere along the line, you missed the boat and your life went terribly wrong.

The third section of the Book of Isaiah has a universal outlook that is both inspiring and moving. During their exile in Babylon, the people of Israel continued to reflect on their understanding of God and their new experience in an alien land. Their vision of God evolved — no longer was God merely Israel’s deity, but the God of all humanity.

Few people like to hear the unvarnished truth. Instead, most prefer truth that is sugar coated and in line with what they want to hear. This applies even more to those in power, for they are often surrounded by yes-men that communicate a view of reality that is very slanted and distorted.

“I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the world.” Socrates wrote those words more than 2,400 years ago. Today more than ever these are words which we would need to appropriate because, more and more, our world and we ourselves are sinking into some unhealthy forms of tribalism where we are concerned primarily with taking care of our own.

Sometimes there is more than meets the eye in the people we encounter each day. Thousands pass us anonymously, while occasionally we exchange a few words or a gesture with certain individuals. Is this accidental or coincidental?

The Gospels tell us that after King Herod died, an angel appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, telling him: “Get up! Take the child and His Mother and go to the land of Israel, for those seeking the child’s life are now dead” (Matthew 2, 19-20). The angel, it would seem, spoke prematurely, the child, the infant Christ, was still in danger, is still in danger, is still mortally threatened, right to this day.